Wonder why your kid thinks screen time so special? It could be because adults are treating screens as special.

🤔This doesn’t mean we praise screens or think of them as highly as kids do. Treating screens as special can happen when we restrict regular access to games, treat them unpredictably, or put them on a pedestal.

🚩When we treat screens this way, the message we’re sending to kids is: “ this thing you like, is special and off-limits”And that can make kids MORE likely to beg or sneak to gain access to screens.

👉🏻Swipe to see the difference between “special” and “not so special” framing and the messages it sends to our kids.

🕝If you’re working on making this change in your home, remember this is not an overnight transition. If a child is used to games being “special”, it may take several weeks for them to gain trust in this new framing around games. They need time to see that their access to games will be consistent not conditional.

Have you made any changes in your home to make screens less special? How did it go? Tell me below.

One that I noticed and really surprised me, is consent. Yep, consent.

I noticed that a lot of the interactions you have with Pokemon in the game are asking how they are, what they need, and offering them things. Pokemon offer you things in return, and accept or decline offers. None of them apologize for saying no, none force you or other Pokemon to do something they don’t want to.

Consent can be tricky to discuss with kids, especially kids who are “too young” to be encountering consent in relationships. And when we try to discuss consent it can feel like. heavy topic, and kids can shut down.

So, instead, meet them where they’re at. In the video you can see how I address conversations about consent simply based on what the characters said in the game.

What if you don’t play Pokemon? Neither do I! You don’t need to “know” who every character is, you don’t need to know what all the words mean. It’s actually an advantage that you don’t! Ignore the words you don’t know, and focus on the themes you see, like if a character asks another if they’re ok with something, or if a character does NOT listen to another.

We can talk about consent simply by asking questions like “why are they asking that?” or “are they listening to the other person? How can you tell?” or “if someone asked you that/spoke to you that way, how would it make you feel?” And then talk about a situation you might see that apply to in the rest of your child’s life.

Do you have other do this every day? No! If you can find a few minutes every now and then, you can connect based on their interests and also show how the skills and topics that come up in leisure activities can improve and inform the rest of our lives.

I’m no defender of EdTech, since many EdTech tools seem like attempts for private companies to monetize on public ed and attempt to replace teachers, largely with AI driven tools.

But, like any tool, EdTech is a tool. And attempting to categorize it as one “thing” is about as useful as categorizing all teachers, all students, or all textbooks as single entities.

Most tools come down to how you use them; when EdTech is used as a replacement or substitute for things that didn’t really need replacing, such as replacing handwritten notes with typing in a Google Doc, then that probably isn’t going to make kids more engaged or result in better test scores. And when EdTech is essentially replacing differentiated instruction- when a teacher provides individualized teaching or reteaching based on their expertise and student needs- with algorithmically driven questions, that’s probably not going to help either.

But there are EdTech tools that can be used in thoughtful and meaningful ways, and that mostly comes down to the teacher, the students, and the overall environment. So if your child is using EdTech, talk to them about it! Do they like it? Why? How is it different or similar to getting a lesson from their teacher?

And of course, talk to teachers as well, not to poke holes in their argument but to understand. Some teachers get no training in these tools, others may get comprehensive training. Some may find the data helpful, some may not. When we better understand a tool and its uses, we’re more likely to support teachers and students and what they may need, whether it’s EdTech or analog.

Have you ever seen your child playing a game, maybe a calm, educational game, but when you look at the screen you see they’re trying to drive off a cliff or annoying an in-game character to see what will happen?

Relax, your child is not starting their villain origin story. In fact, chances are you did the same thing yourself. Don’t believe me? See some recent childhood gaming confessions from my audience:

That’s right, destructive, violent, weird, or otherwise “wrong” play isn’t new, and it isn’t unique to video games. As long as kids have played, they’ve played some weird stuff.

And even if you weren’t the type to push limits in video games- I can still remember the horror I felt when I realized I’d accidentally starved my Tamagotchi- you probably played a storyline or idea that you knew wouldn’t be ok to do “for real”. And chances are, you did it specifically because you knew it wouldn’t be ok in the real world.

I’ve collected these confessions several times over the years and I’ve gotta say, drowning Sims is the number one confession, so if that was you, you’re in good company.

It has been shown in studies that i-Ready and similar tools do not increase student comprehension or test scores at least not to the degree claimed by these companies. The studies that DO show an increase in test scores tend to be paid for by the company, or, tend to show outcomes that are very small, or are not shown in at-risk or underperforming student groups.

But that’s not why they’re getting sued. Instead, they’re getting sued for allegedly selling student data to 3rd party companies.

This sounds bad, but, hear me out, this lawsuit probably is going to make things worse.

EdTech companies (and all public ed employees and companies) have to be FERPA compliant- the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. While not perfect, any data that Curriculum Associates is giving to 3rd party companies is "de-identified" and focuses on student scores. In short, they are likely using anonymized student data to “improve” their product through use of gen AI tools.

I don’t think this is good, to be clear, but suing these companies for doing arguably legal things with student data is not going to get rid of too much EdTech. It’s not going to pay paraprofessionals more than the national average of a measly $19 per hour. It’s not going to provide the tens of millions necessary to update physical materials like textbooks so that teachers have an alternative to online curricula.

Honestly, it will probably make these companies write firmer contracts, making it harder to avoid these products.

But this brings up a really important broader point: should parents be able to consent (or not consent) to the use of their child’s data? FERPA allows schools to do this on behalf of parents which could sound like an overreach. But if we were to give parents the right to consent to use of student data, that has some very tricky implications that could easily become a quagmire of “parental rights” overlapping with the role of public education.

I maintain that it’s generally better to ask: how can I get MORE of what I want, instead of how can I try to get rid of what I don’t want. And I think EdTech is a good example. Parents need to advocate for MORE electives, more books, more librarians, more interventionists, and from that will come a conversation about what to have less of.

My answer is the same as it always is: focus on the skill.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again: there are 4 overarching skills I think my child needs to have when interacting with something potentially unsafe (Which is basically everything, let’s be honest):

1. Literacy (familiarity and fluency)

2. Critical Thinking (evaluation, skepticism, asking questions)

3. Risk assessment (what is a risk, what is the size of the risk, is this the time to take this risk, what are the consequences, etc.)

4. When and how to ask for help

I want my child to have these skills with academics, such as knowing a subject, thinking about the information presented to them critically, knowing what to do when they don’t understand and when is the right time to do it, and how to advocate for what they need.

I also want them to have those skills when talking with friends in real life at a party that’s getting out of hand, when talking with a potential future romantic partner who is asking for intimate photos or texts, and with strangers online.

So if we’re worried about interactions with strangers online, let’s focus on the skill, remove the technology, and we’re with pretty clear goals: understand how chats work and who they’re interacting with, know what to share and what to keep private, know what questions strangers should or shouldn’t ask (versus friends or family), and know what to do if someone crosses an unsafe boundary.

“But the reason it’s unsafe is BECAUSE of the technology” you think “you can’t just take out the tech”. My point in removing the tech from the equation is to help us focus in on the skill we’re worried about. If our kid needs help with risk assessment, we can build that skill through sports, through crossing the street, through spending money out of a budget, through guessing on a test, AND through technology. By talking with kids about “risky behavior” instead of “the risks of technology” we help them see the crossover, so they understand that risk isn’t always about the medium, even if the medium changes the risk factors.

🧠Think of it like a physical space, like a video game- boundaries are the coded rules and barriers of a space. We are aware of them from the beginning, they’re consistent, and they don’t change based on our behavior. We can interact with them, we can push them, we can complain about them, but they do not change.

🤯On the other hand, if a rule changes based on our behavior (Ex: “you were rude in the car, no TV today”) then that boundary is no longer clear or dependable. It’s not conditional on a child’s behavior but is also conditional on *our feelings and emotions as adults*.

💪🏼For me, having clear boundaries not only helps my child but it helps ME fall back on the clear rules and boundaries I’ve already set, so that I don’t contradict myself or make an impulsive decision based on my own dysregulation.

🫠Of course, the tough thing about boundaries is that we can only prove they exist by *enforcing them*. An invisible wall in a video game only exists if we run into it to prove it’s there. Similarly, a child can only know our boundaries are real and enforced by testing them and ensuring we will enforce them.

🙈If we place the responsibility of enforcing a boundary on our child, we are asking them to do *our job* and that may not be appropriate given their age or development.

🔥ALL families are different! All children and brains are different. Some of my “not boundaries” examples could still be useful for some families especially with kids who need a bit more responsibility or feeling of choice. We may start by strictly enforcing a time limit and then try saying “ok time to turn it off!” and it may work fine! That might mean our child has learned the boundary well enough that they can now enforce it themselves- that’s great! That’s a skill we want them to have as they grow. But if we find ourselves getting into a power struggle it may be a sign that we may have to step in and reinforce that boundary, even temporarily.

In my opinion, the more neutral we can be, the better. If we talk about content, or food, or friends, or music, as “good or bad” that won’t discourage our kids from engaging with it but it might discourage them from talking about it with you, and it may make it feel even more special by being off limits. Think about how many millennials and Gen Xers feel about “bad” foods that are less nutrient dense.

Which is exactly why I used Fritos in this comparison! And before anyone comments and says “but this isn’t the same” the point is not that these are identical items. “But those videos are designed to hook you!” yes, so are Fritos. So is advertising. So are cliffhanger endings on TV shows. By talking about the design aspects across all types of content or parts of our lives, we’re keeping it neutral while still pointing out how to tell that different things affect us differently.

The reality is, we all engage in brainrot. The word is over 100 years old. Maybe it’s Real Housewives, maybe it’s Girl Dinner, maybe it’s a trashy podcast, maybe it’s spicy novels. Brainrot has a purpose, even if it’s leisure and relaxation. That doesn’t mean I want my child watching brainrot videos right before they have to go concentrate at school. But if the only way I talk about them is to talk about how bad they are, I’m losing the opportunity to listen to why my child likes them, the purpose they serve, and help my child notice how content impacts them and how that can fit in their lives.

Of course that doesn’t mean we say yes to all content or all content creators. Of course we will still say no to certain things or certain types of things. And that can be part of the conversation too.

📺In YouTube Kids, make sure you’ve made an account for your child

🔒When signed in to their account in YTK, click the lock in the lower right corner

⚙️Solve the math problem, then click the settings cog

🧒🏼Select your child, then sign in to your associated account (not shown in this video for privacy)

☑️Click “edit settings”

👏🏻Select “approved content”

🙌🏻Choose the content you want your child to see (scroll in the icons at the top to see other content types)

🔎Search for content in YTK if desired and share that content as well

🤯TO SHARE FROM REGULAR YOUTUBE:

Not all videos in regular YouTube are bad. Many are very appropriate but are not marked as “for kids” so they don’t show up in YTK. To share from YouTube:

🔥Find the video you want to share *in the YouTube app only!*

🚦Click the 3 dots in the right corner of the thumbnail of the video

⤴️Click “Share”

👨‍👨‍👦‍👦Click “with kids” (at the bottom, got cut off in this video)

🧒🏼Select the child you want to share it with. You CANNOT share videos with paid sponsorships

🌟Now when your child opens YTK, they’ll see the content you’ve approved, and ONLY the content you’ve approved.

💪🏼Take 5-10 minutes and do this if your kids use YouTube. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and although it’s not easy to stay aware of everything your kids do online, we can set them and ourselves up for success from the very beginning.

💪Note that some families will only allow YouTube if they are watching with their kids and that is certainly safer than allowing independent viewing. But if kids are using YouTube with any privacy, approved content only is the only way to prevent them from seeing anything other than what you approve.

Everyone’s gonna have a different take on this. This might feel micromanaging to you. Maybe you could have this conversation with some friends’ parents but not others. Maybe it would sound different. That’s fine! This is a starting point, not a script.

We all have non-negotiables about other people’s homes. Gun safety, pool safety, oversight, etc. If you have a non-negotiable about screen time, try to think of a way you can present it that is not a barrier to the other person. For example if your child is at a friends’ house for 5 hours so you can do a massive project, that. might not be the time to send a long list of preferences! But if your non-negotiable is “nothing horror, because my child will be terrified all night” that’s probably reasonable. When in doubt, I ask myself how I would feel hearing the request if the situation were reversed.

We can also lead with acknowledgment and flexibility. If we host a friend at our house, we can model the conversation we’d like to hear by asking “hey, is screen time ok? I was thinking I’d let them watch a half hour show after lunch, something on Netflix, PG rating, would that work for you?” or “I know Joey really wants to show off the Switch 2, is that something you’re ok with Hannah playing? If not, I’ll let Joey know ahead of time so it doesn’t come up.”

How have you handled this with playdates?

Which is how these games appeared on our family iPad recently! WB was thrilled to see “Hungry Caterpillar+” because they’d played a similar game (Hungry Caterpillar Shapes and Colors) on their Kids Fire tablet. These games are simple, calm, exploratory, and great for very young kids. But WB was very happy to eat fruit and water plants :)

Katamari is such a zany game, and it’s a great mix of fun, goal-oriented, and also aimless. All of these games are rated “4+” but you’ll notice I have different opinions about what age of child might enjoy them. That’s because App Store ratings are about content appropriateness, not about the age who might engage well with the gameplay or story. A younger child might enjoy Katamari for entirely different reasons than a tween or teen or adult.

Unpacking+ is a game I’d encourage you to play or play with your child. WB and I ended up having a lot of great organizational/executive functioning conversations, like if scissors should go on a desk or in a drawer. But beyond organization, there is a sweet story waiting to be revealed as you follow the main character through different moves in their life.

Do your kids enjoy any of these games?

I hear so much about how kids “behave badly” after they watch certain content, and I think there’s a huge digital literacy piece that we are often overlooking: kids need to learn the purpose of entertainment media.

When I was in the 2nd grade, my elementary school had a moral panic about Power Rangers. Kids were “playing” Power Rangers at recess, and pretending to fight each other. Sometimes that “pretending” got a little too real. Did the school teach us about pretend versus real fighting? Did they explain that even actors are pretending to fight? Did they show us an alternative way to pretend play without fighting? No. They just blamed Power Rangers and told our parents to not let us watch it. (Spoiler alert: we all kept watching it, but some of us did start hiding it from our parents!)

It’s frankly simple and easy to blame the creator or the content medium when our kid copies something. We could say “it’s YouTube’s fault!” but like my 90’s era example, that doesn’t actually address the issue. The issue is- kids need to understand the purpose behind media, and figure out how (or if) that should apply to their lives.

A child probably isn’t going to pretend to be a content creator every time they make a mistake. But if the way they are learning to cope with mistakes is by lashing out and exaggerating to get attention and deflect from feeling discomfort, THAT is an issue. But we don’t solve that issue by blaming YouTube or modern media. We solve it by leaning in- by getting curious, by noticing, by asking questions, and by listening to what our kids have to say.

That will get us way farther in not only understanding what our kids are thinking and feeling, but helping them understand it as well and help them find sustainable ways of processing those feelings.

But while getting rid of the screen may remove the trigger of these these behaviors, it won’t help addressed the underlying cause, which is dysregulation and knowing how to spot it. This is a skill be when our kids to have in so many parts of their lives. A better way to teach it then making it a game?

I made this simple graphic in Canva, but you could write it on a whiteboard on a piece of paper or even call out commands in the moment. You could use a dye, roll a ball with different colored sides, or write some strategies on cards and choose one at random from a deck.

Will these work magically every time? No. But that’s part of the process! We want our kids to figure out what works for them and what doesn’t and experimentation is a big part of that.

Does that mean we should put up and tolerate? No! We still get to decide what kind of behaviors result in pausing or ending straight time to work on regulating. And, when our kids get good at these strategies, they will be able to employ them in screen time, sports, heated conversations, and maybe their future workplace. Still transfer is key, and keeping a playful helps us avoid shame.

🙋🏻‍♂️Many default carers, particularly those who are women or were socialized as women, take on the majority of the mental load. This extends beyond knowing how much milk is in the fridge and often becomes being the “go to” person for knowing whether a room is clean, if a toilet is in need of a scrub, and where all things “live”.

😩The problem is then that person becomes the “air traffic controller” and no one can do their own mental labor independently.

🤯Recently I saw @samkelly_world on IG share the idea of practicing having your kids “notice” things about a room in order to identify what things need to be done

🔥I’ve been trying it and it’s been a game changer.

🤔But it also made me pause and think: wait, kids are able to handle mental load for things they CARE about. People who play complex games can keep a mental inventory, they know which objectives to complete first, they know which ability to use in what order, etc. That’s all complex and requires a lot of thought.

💪🏼The good news is, we can transfer this skill to real life!

👉🏻Next time you see a room in disarray, get everyone to pause, look at the room, and ask “what do you notice [that is out of place/that needs to be put away/that we don’t need/that is yours/that belongs in another room, etc.]”

🧠Everyone says one thing and then we ask them what needs to be done with the thing they notice. Maybe it gets thrown away, put away, moved, etc.

👏🏻Then everyone does the thing they noticed and takes care of it.

🙌🏻Soon, you’ll be able to say “hey, take a look at your room and notice if anything needs to be put away”.

🤯Remember, mental load and domestic labor are skills. They are taught. We aren’t innately better at them, and that means our kids can gain the skill of mental load and domestic labor too

I think the initial comparison to tobacco companies makes sense- both are selling a potentially harmful and addictive substance, and both marketed to at-risk audiences.

But I don’t think it’s so simple to say that social media companies “marketed” to kids the same way that Camel Cigarettes did with “Joe Cool” ads.

Why? One could argue social media companies weren’t marketing to kids, just to users, but the more important point is this: the “product” marketed by social media companies is that which we choose to focus on as a society.

In short: the things that we as a society deem “good” or aspirational, will thus become the things social media algorithms uphold.

If a society places a stigma on fatness, then that will be reflected in algorithms and in the controls of the platforms like beauty filters. If society favors whiteness, heteronormativity, non-disabled people, patriarchy, etc., THOSE are the things the algorithm will amplify, highlight, and further glorify.

Social media companies didn’t invent a fat phobic, transphobic, ableist world.

Don’t get me wrong, these companies exacerbate these things, and I’m not excusing them. But for those of us who grew up in a world prioritizing thinness and whiteness and “prettiness” above all else- which is pretty much everyone- it’s clear this was here long before social media. Is formally indicting social media going to fix that? Perhaps, but if so it will be because we are also willing to challenge the status quo.

🌟One of the things I say over and over is that gaming should be treated like any other activity. I often make a comparison to food- when we treat candy or cake like any other food, our kids learn to enjoy it without the obsession that a scarcity mindset can bring. Same goes for games.

🕹This doesn’t mean gaming can’t have limits, and this doesn’t mean access to gaming can’t be impacted by kids’ choices. But if we frame it in a scarcity mindset, kids feel unsure of their access to games and want to gorge themselves on gaming. When predictable, kids know when gaming is available and can develop a healthy relationship with games AND other activities

🎮Swipe to see simple changes we can make to the framing we use around games and the different messages that can send to kids.

*A note on the term “balanced diet”. I use this term mostly because it’s one we generally use to mean “a variety of things that are good for a person” but to be clear, that doesn’t mean “as little as sugar as possible” or “no screens at all”. “Balanced” will vary on an individual level for many things, tech and food included.

I am skeptical about “dumb” technologies that are reinventions of the wheel. Some would call me cynical. Why? Because hardware isn’t our problem. We didn’t melt down landline phones to make iPhones. Landline phones still exist.

But what does NOT exist, is a world that supports landline phones.

Case in point: I unboxed a “dumb” landline phone that I received for free, and my child’s first question was “who can I call?” My answer? No one. They could call grandparents, and that was it. They had no friends with homes with a landline.

“Oh that’s why you get a bunch of families to go in on it together!” you’re thinking. Yeah, that will work…for a while.

But it won’t work forever. And here is why:

Landline phones “worked” to be our main form of communication, because they were the main form of communication for Everyone. Adults and kids alike used the same utility, sometimes in the same way and sometimes in different ways.

The only way a landline is actually going to stave off smartphones in a long-term way, is if everyone in the home is using them. If they are something only the children are using, then the landline isn’t a “real” phone, it’s a “kid” version of a real phone, because adults are continuing to only use the “real” version (a smartphone).

Think about cities with robust public and alternative transit versus car-centric cities. If I raise my child using bikes and public transit to get around, they are engaging with the same transit that I am as an adult- they are invited into the “real” world in the same way as me. But if they are in a car-centric world, if I hand them a bike and a bus pass they’re still going to ask when they’re getting a car.

And of course, this brings us to the real issue: the world has moved on. We might love the idea of using a landline at home, but between texts, WhatsApp, apps that we use to conduct vital domestic and invisible labor at home, it just isn’t always feasible. Much as we might love creating this diorama of the past for our kids to exist in, it isn’t actually a long term solution.

So, if you want a landline, get a landline. Don’t pay for kitschy startup subscriptions, btw: find a landline phone hiding in a closet somewhere, and contact your local VOIP provider (Ooma always you to have “allow only” call lists and costs $10/month). But don’t think it’ll be the same as when we were kids: true landline phones using copper wire are almost nonexistent (and is being phased out) in the US, so your only option is internet based and won’t work when the power is off.

🧠Focusing only on the idea of “too much” leaves out the purpose that screens often serve.

📺I believe screens should be used in a way that benefits a whole family. And I believe that adults may give kids screen time as a direct benefit for the adult but it actually ends up benefiting the child by proxy.

Some examples of ways screens may be used as a benefit to adults (and children secondarily):

🥧making dinner while child watches TV

🧑🏻‍🏫taking a work call so adults can stop working for the day and be present later

👶🏼Attending to needs of other child and focusing on one child at a time to prevent a parent from getting overwhelmed

🚿Adult attending to their needs so they can feel regulated and present with their child

🤷🏻‍♂️Now this doesn’t mean you couldn’t do something else during these times besides screens. By asking “is this screen time benefitting all of us?” we may find the answer to be “yes but maybe something else could too”.

🎵We could put on music or a podcast

🖍️Put out a simple activity that occupies our kids

🛹If we have the privilege of outdoor access we could use that

But sometimes a screen will be the easiest or best option in the moment and that’s ok too. By focusing on needs as opposed to amount, we shift our focus to what purpose screens are serving and the ways that can and can’t be achieved differently. This will hopefully give us less guilt than solely focusing on amount of time.

We’ve been huge fans of Alamo Drafthouse for over a decade. We’re big movie people and one of us will go see a movie along in the evenings as a way to get a break, often once a week or more. One of the things I love about Alamo Drafthouse is their “no talking, no texting, no visible phones” policy. I know at Alamo, movies will be dark and silent from extra noise, as they should be. Plus, being able to order made-to-order food from a human being and connected twitch my waiter about movies is a wonderful feature.

This year, Alamo (now owned by Sony) is main gate decision to require a smartphone to order any food or drinks, as well as display your tickets. The theater chain known for kicking people out if they were on their phones, will now require the use of cell phones in order to get any concessions (there are no concession stands because everything is made to order).

And yes, this is enraging and probably a nail in the coffin for Alamo as a company. But this also speaks to the increasingly wide gap between the way companies use technology and the way people actually want to use technology.

Companies use technology as a way to decrease the need for staffing and increase profits; technology is maximized to maximize profits. But consumers see technology as something that should be used only to enhance their experience but should otherwise be minimized.

This gap reflects the difficulty of actually minimizing technology use in the real world; if I left my phone at home to go to my local Alamo (where I used to have a membership), I wouldn’t be able to show my ticket, wouldn’t be able to park my car because the parking garage requires online registration and a scanned QR code, and I wouldn’t be able to eat or drink anything. I wouldn’t even be able to see a menu.

I would LOVE to not need my phone to exist in society, but that isn’t my personal choice. Companies are forcing our hands in a way we cannot counteract by criticizing individuals for relying on smartphones (or getting them for kids). High schoolers, similarly, often are required to use a social media platform for club info, or access apps or web based portals for things like grades, school info, and more.

If our goal is a world that does treat smartphones as a pre-requisite, we have to recognize that individuals aren’t the appropriate place to channel our frustration. Companies and local government officials need to hear form us, while focusing on the barriers.

Don’t like your child on a Chromebook all day? Ask the school what would be needed to offer a paper alternative and try to fill that gap if you can.

Don't want to use your phone in a movie theater? Don’t go to theaters that prioritize profits over experience, and make it clear to them this is based on corporate decisions, not individual employees doing their best in an oppressive system.

A few years ago I was bemoaning the fact that the hardest time after daylight savings isn’t the day of the adjustment, it’s the day after and that is a Monday. It seemed like a cruel joke.

And then I had an epiphany: we could just change one day early. So we did. And it has worked brilliantly.

First things first: if this won’t work for your family, or the thought of taking on more labor to benefit the other humans in your household is too much right now, then don’t do this. Some years, we do it, others we skip it; it often depends what our schedule is looking like.

In short, we do all the typical DLS prep we typically do, just on Friday night instead of Saturday night: adjust the clocks, tell our kiddo they make wake up at a time that feels off from what the clock says, etc.

And on our phones and tablets, I go into the settings and manually adjust the time zone so that everything in my phone, such as alarms and appointments, also gets adjusted.

What about things like soccer games, or playdates, or scheduled events? If possible, we still attend and it’s just one hour off from when they typically are; alarms come in handy for remembering those things since they won’t be at the “same” time as usual.

But like I said, some years we have too much going on so we skip it.

If you give it a try, let me know how it goes for you! Do you have other spring forward survival tips?